Raghunath Chakraborty passes away

Noted artist Raghunath Chakraborty passed away yesterday early morning at 3:30am at BIRDEM hospital in the capital due to brain hemorrhage. He was 47. His mortal remains were taken to the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka at noon.   

Raghunath Chakraborty's works look familiar to most people. His pata-chitra style paintings, revolving around folk culture, were exhibited at the Drik Gallery. A proposed exhibition showcasing his works at Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts is in the pipeline. 

Raghunath Chakraborty was born in Gaibandha in 1969. He earned his B.Com in 1991. His subjects are simple, rural, clear unambiguous images. The paintings are contained within the borders of the drawings. He belongs to the same school of painting as Shambhu Acharya, who was his inspiration.

Raghunath never underwent any academic training in painting, but was rather inspired by his mother's 'alpana' work out on the front yard, and said he drew lessons from the works of Jamini Roy and Abanindranath Tagore.

He used a variety of materials: oyster shell powder, gum and wood apple are just some of things he used to prepare his paint. 

Apart from his paintings, Raghunath worked for many popular theatre productions like “Behular Bhashan”, “Chaka”, “Champak Nagarer Upokatha”, “Mohajoner Nao”, “Lal Jamin” and “Dokkhina Sundori” as artistic designer and director.